


Dirigible Plums

by zombiejuicer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A despicable man with a despicable outlook gets a chance at a new not so despicable life, Alternate Universe- Canon Divergence, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Severus Snape Lives, Slow Burn, Snuna- Freeform, luna being nice and giving Important gifts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22433785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiejuicer/pseuds/zombiejuicer
Summary: When fate allows he cheat death one final time, it also decides he must learn how to accept the unordinary in order to finally heal.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/ Severus Snape
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Dirigible Plums

“Oh, my, my.” Her voice tinkled like eerie fairy lights in the Forbidden Forest as she approached his near-cadaver, thrown onto a slab of rotting wooden floor in a most terrible, terrible tree. Severus Snape did not need to be saved, and he most certainly did not care to be. His service, or disservice, however you may want to put it, was over. He was of no use to a dead man, or perhaps soon enough two, with his rather remarkable slash marks across his neck currently loosening his blood all across the floor. Such a martyr, his mother would say.

The only difference was that he was made acutely aware of his predicament, now, as the last blessing of a solitary man wanting to die alone in peace was squandered away by his most unremarkable of students. She was passable at best, and obnoxiously, well, loony, at worst. 

Touched or crazy, however one may want to put it, the Lovegood girl lay right smack dab in the middle of all of the available options. Though her potions were nearly admirable, despite his surly constitution in class she always made considerable effort actually trying to learn. Not as obnoxious as Granger in her first year, always shooting up a hand or interjecting a knee-jerking question, but certainly a damper on his constant dour image. 

Lovegood would always bereave him quite differently, though. The wispy girl dare quietly ask his name as he stalked past, wanting to make sure she had used the correct amount of powdered moonstone in a cauldron of Draught of Peace, or to simply ask him with no discernable fear he could latch onto, if her potion was the correct shade of mauve. It was a grievous wrong in his eyes that she was unbearably unflappable, and he couldn't help but find a morbid type of humor in the fact he was still nitpicking the general student populace even on his deathbed. 

Her punitive body seemingly floated carefully downwards and became wedged betwixt his arm and side; a most annoying occurrence, as strings of her sunny blonde hair tucked over her shoulder mingled with his blood and turned into a most unpleasant strawberry. What a contrast to the Malfoys’ behavior she displayed, despite their eerily similar gene pool, it would seem. A pity Draco probably couldn’t stand the girl, he was adequately sure Narcissa would be charmed by Lovegood’s long, freely flowing pale locks. He doubted Lovegood wanted anything to do with them these days, though, if his fleeting memory served.

“What a terrible thing to have become you, professor.” Her voice, barely daring to step above a whisper, had no edge, no tint, no anything. She simply stated her own truth in a dulcet tone, and he spited her for it. What was she to know of terrible things, of Voldemort, of lost love taken by a single flash of iridescent death? If he could have verbally seethed out a retort, he would. Instead, all his crackling, bubbling anger could muster up was a baleful look and a magnificently painful sputter of his own split throat. He felt like fainting as she crept a hand onto his jaw, pushing it ever so slightly to the side, to assess the damage. 

As she clicked her tongue and brought out a choice salve, he found it very peculiar indeed that she had essence of Dittany clanking around in her purse, waiting to be used on such a victim as he. As if on cue, reading his eyes like a damned simple Transfiguration textbook, and choosing what she thought in character for him to think, she answered.

“It’s not from the dungeons, Professor, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

Right. Worried about stolen potions. If he could only scoff.

She uncorked the wine-colored potion, ever careful not to spill. Ragged breathing shoved out from his poor throat, and he wondered why she felt the need to try. Few ever felt the need to fight the difficult death after Nagini, save the blasted Weasley father, perhaps, and even fewer others lived to talk about such a thing. Fewer still, would want to save him. Lovegood certainly was odd, just as her essays and classmates suggested. He half expected to finally believe in Nargles as soon as his brain became delirious from blood loss, and finally understand even a glimpse of her mind. 

The sheer amount of potions needed to pull off the feat, fate permitting or not, was astronomically apt to not simply be sitting in Miss Lovegood’s purse. Or, maybe, she had a quick stop at St. Mungo’s by broom before paying a dying man his last visit. If he could croak out a sour laugh, he would have.

“I do think we should hurry Professor, before the Wrackspurts get to you.” She was practically talking to herself, head cocking in such a way to seem as if she were trying to expressively organize her own thoughts. if not for his own beady eyes on her face, portraying a seething… Something. Severus didn’t quite know how to feel, at this particular moment. He didn’t dare look at her hands, not that he very well could, without great distress. Far be it from him to be stop being worked upon by a mere student. Not as if he could actually properly tell her off, otherwise. 

Luna seemingly worked with a type of patient grace, treating him like he was only a patient of Poppy’s, sitting on a cot in the medical wing. She patted his cheek in good graces, giving a consoling smile, as if he were a mere school aged boy with a sorely-earned scrape from quidditch practice. As she offered him a gentle touch, her left hand coming to rest near the back of his head, his tongue became lead-solid in his mouth, jaw spasming with enough force to make his head start to shake. He knew this to be the beginning of simply having too little blood for his body to push around, and too much pain to properly keep his muscles in line.

Though, never once through her time uncorking the bottle, gently pushing his greasy hair to the side of his open, pale neck, did she seem disgusted by the circumstances. Her purple slacks were caked in dust by the Shrieking Shack’s ancient floorboards, her hair caked in blood, and her hands were a severe victim to the same. Despite all the horrible onslaughts to her appearance, she remained working with a slightly furrowed brow, and a determined glint in her eyes, an errant bit of spittle peeking from her battle-worn and sweaty face. She was shadowed only by the creaking limbs and encrusted windows of their current occupance.

“Don’t worry Professor,” She talked to him like a fellow student, worried about an upcoming Arithmancy test. 

“-We’ll get you all sorted out.” She began to tilt the bottle onto the first slit in his throat, and an absolutely agonizing sort of pain shot through his very being. His large hand instantaneously struck out and gripped her shoulder as if she were his last earthly possession in a sea of blistering, green smoking fire. He let out a guttural, wet sound, half between a yell of pain and a gut-wrenching gurgle.

“Oh, now, you must stay still, Professor Snape. You’ll be awfully sore if you keep up like that.” Talking as if he would ever hope to survive. Her smile was slight and encouraging, glad to see him move, even if in pain. A sign of life is a sign of life, even if it’s an angry one.

His face was a sort of furious, deadly still as he exhaustedly collapsed back onto an old wooden panel of the wall. It was all the emotions he would allow himself to show, and even then, any good Death Eater would latch on to that little production like a husband just after cutting into a Christmas roast. He instead opted to sit and begin to tremble, jaw muscles still involuntary clenching from the pain of his pores and skin itself melting together to join again. 

“You’re doing great, Professor.” Another agonizing moment as she applied the second dose to the lower of the fang-marks, and his head was thrown back into the already-battered wooden board. His teeth let out a slow hiss. With another puff of green smoke, his skin melded together, leaving instead unicorn-hair thin streaks of red, no bigger than a parchment cut from grading papers. Sure, around it was a most terrible reddening around the marks, rubbed bleeding raw from being moved in such a hurry, but the most important mending was done, for an indeterminate amount of time. After all, Nagini’s venom was rather notorious for pushing past even the best of healing potions. If Lovegood had managed to pay attention in class within the moderately sized potion-weaknesses portion, she would do well to remember it now, and why he was apt to falter heavily in saying the probability of his survival was high. She had truly mingled with fates much above her own, drifting past the Whomping Willow with such ease, thinking a simple potion could lift the weight of such a heavy life as his.

Severus was taken from his train of thought, ears beginning to ring, and fuzzing peripheral vision catching onto an odd glint of light. It was Lovegood’s earrings. Despite all the death and morbidity around her, she still decided wearing earrings such as those. Simply extraordinary.

Attached to those earrings was a dainty face, dollish and pale, unmarred besides a scar below her right eye, and others associated below the chin. They were no doubt, he noted with a sharp pang of intense guilt, from her prolonged stay at the Malfoy’s. She needn’t worry as he had quite the feeling that they would trouble her no further, whether it be from death sentence or quite the lengthy stay at Azkaban. 

“I had hoped a bit of color would brighten people’s spirits…” Her quiet way of speaking was a harsh yell compared the silence pervading the house, and Severus’s lagging mind caught on in quite a delayed manner, neglecting to recognize how she yet again seemingly read his mind. If she noticed his lagging movement, she did nothing to make it seem so. 

He most certainly couldn’t manage a word, and it was probably for the best as he couldn’t vouch for it being polite, especially after being dragged through such intense pain only moments prior. He slowly let his gaze travel to her wide eyes, where she remained seriously looking at him as if she were half a mind to ask what he thought of her earrings.

“But maybe I was too quick to assume it would help things. I think it’s the Umgubular Slashkilters. Everyone is quite off.” She dutifully corked the bottle again and set it to her side, not daring to move between Severus’s long legs and dead-weight arms, his palms becoming splayed upwards right beside her back. She set her hands politely in her lap, and the only sign of anxiety about their predicament seemed to be their constant wringing, though she never testified to it.

“What do you think, Professor Snape? Maybe they were a little too much.” He tried to swallow, neck undulating mercilessly. The loss of blood was finally catching up to him with quickening speed and much less remorse. His head ached with increasing lightheaded-ness, and he tried to focus his cloudy eyes on her face, if only to gain some sort of bearing with his heart rate roaring in his ears. His head must have been lolling, or else Lovegood wouldn’t have dared pull it in so close to her chest, holding his body against her own in some devil-driven parody of those years long lost to him. 

“Please do try to stay awake, Professor. Here,” She stopped cradling his head for a moment, hand rising up to fiddle with her ear, then returning to him holding one tiny earring. She gently found his right hand, grabbing it by the forearm and laid it across his faintly-moving chest. Opening his clenched fist firmly, splaying out his long fingers, she set the single earring inside, then closed it once more with a polite ease.

“Maybe it will help you more than the others. I hope so.” Her tone was polite and lightly conversational as she tucked a reddish tinted string of hair behind the now unaccented ear.

“I’ll get you up to Madam Pomfrey as soon as I can.” Her voice was quiet with dignity, it was a strong promise she provided. Luna did not waver on such important things. If he offered any physical inclination for her to continue, he was too close to collapse to remember doing so. As his eyes began painting the room black, he again felt the soft touch of a hand on his head, and the beating of a heart stronger than his own against his ear as they both lay in the dilapidated corner of the Shrieking Shack.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been awhile since I've dipped my toes in HP, though with that also comes me shamelessly plugging my rarepairs. I can't help that I think these two are very nice foils for each other. Thank you for reading!  
> (P.S.- if you want to know how I envisioned Snape surviving, personally I think the closest bet until you can get to a medical facility would be rigorous re-application of Essence of Dittany each time Nagini's poison fights through and re-opens the wounds.)


End file.
